


Well Within It's Usual Frame

by MundyMorn



Category: Epic Mickey (Video Games)
Genre: Bitterness, Canon Divergence, Gen, Self depreciation, Slight fluff, brotherly love...sort of oswald is in denial, just a drabble really, mickey's side quests don't go so well and oswald's gotta step in during the aftermanth, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MundyMorn/pseuds/MundyMorn
Summary: One of Mickey's missions goes awry, and Oswald has to step in. Begrudgingly.
Relationships: Brother relationship in the making here, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 59





	Well Within It's Usual Frame

He’d spent the last decade in typical melancholy, with nice little recesses made up of thinning out the Blots trying to get the jug open. So feeling such furious anger and tongue-tingling bitterness was a head-spinner. Sometimes he lived for those moments of action. Oswald rarely visited Mean Street and avoided Ostown like it would give him shingles. He feels especially weird standing in front of the statue (that he’d attacked with a welding mask and blowtorch within half an hour of its arrival) and tried to remember the last time he’d been here.

Oswald had parked himself in this spot and dished out orders to the mouse, if he was going to invade Oswald’s… everything, then the least he could do was pull his half-pint height around. Make him break a sweat for this place for once, see how well he liked it. Rat looked like he hadn’t so much as glimpsed peril around a corner. Acting can only teach ya so much.

(And yet, Oswald found infuriatingly, the mouse was doing a good job. So he’d puttied him off to deal with Petatronic to get that Rocket Part.)

After that, well.

Oswald waved the vague blueprints of his theoretical plan to the side of his mind. There was more pressing stuff to deal with.

“Oswald!”

Arms still crossed and foot tapping rhythmically, the rabbit glanced curtly over his shoulder. Oh look, the mouse’s chauffer. “Gus.” He greets, with as much politeness as his foul mood’s gonna allow.

The gremlin looks panicked. Frazzled even, and skids mid-air in front of him, “Thank goodness, I—Drat it, there’s been an incident! Mickey and I went to grapple the rocket part off Petetronic, but–"

“Let me guess, he screwed it up? That part better not’ve been dropped in thinner.” Oswald was utterly, utterly unphased by the gremlin’s panicking. He might as well told him some milk was spilled.

Then the conversation took a turn.

“No! Petetronic was defeated, but Mickey lost his paintbrush—I found it, but Petetronic managed to get the upper hand. Mickey’s still in Tomorrow City!”

Oswald.

Digested this slowly, arms slowly unfolding. Key mentions: Lost brush, upper hand, still there. The panic on the gremlin’s face.

A twisted, rotten feeling snaked in his vacant chest that he couldn’t describe if he’d had all the dictionaries in the universe. “…is he inert?”

“No! But he’s in bad shape, Oswald, and I can’t get him to budge.”

“You’re asking me to help him.” Oswald wanted to know what stupid pills this gremlin was taking. He wasn’t even mad at him. It was just such audacity. The gremlin tossed a look upwards in exasperation,

“ _Os-wald!_ There’s no time for this! I didn’t think you the toon who would let someone perish so horribly!”

(Maybe Gus was exaggerating a little on that last one, but he got the point across. Briefly, Oswald’s ears straightened in both indignation and maybe a bit of shame, before he quickly folded his arms and grumbled again.)

Only to throw them up and begin stamping towards the projector moments later,” Fine! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, I have to do everything myself. Should’ve gotten that part and sent the rat to the one if the city with all the sharp objects are baby-proofed. Oh, wait! We don’t have an area like that!”

Gus hovered alongside him, completely ignoring his anti-mouse rant entirely. Oswald leaped into the projector with practised ease.

…

Oswald so no hide nor hair of Petetronic, but saw the chaotic splatters of paint (and little trickles of thinner) all over the luminous metal platform. Some panels broken panels lay nearby, naked wire spluttering loudly. Frowning to himself, Oswald let Gus lead him to the edge and watched him swoop down into the put under Petetronic ’s main platform.

Sure enough, the ever-so familiar shape of the mouse was curled on a ledge some meters down, totally immobile. Just shy of a foetal position. Gus was gently shaking his shoulder and murmuring something that even Oswald’s impressive ears couldn’t catch, but the mouse curled further in on himself.

Oh, so he isn’t just hurt,

He’s also sulking!

Oswald was smart enough to see the irony of his inner-tirade instantly and grimaced. Well, he had something to sulk about! People got erased! He’d gotten a good pounding from the Blots in the early days of the war.

Mouse can’t take his licks is all.

Gus re-joined him with a swoop and a sigh,

“I can’t get him to move, Oswald. I could’ve tried carrying him out, but there’s a chance I’d drop him!”

Oswald side-eyed him, and noticed the gremlin didn’t look happy with asking the former to help him either. Bet he wished he could’ve got someone else.

With no further words, Oswald leaped without hesitation down to the ledge. (He kicked off a thin pipe-like protrusion in the wall to break his wall before landing.) He strode over to Mickey’s slumped form and gave him a firm (but very light) nudge with the end of his foot,

“C’mon mouse, up and at ‘em. You’re embaressin’ me.”

Mickey’s eyes opened slowly and Oswald felt that strange, murky feeling again when he saw they were rosy and water. His face was mostly hidden by his arms, which he’d wrapped around his shoulders.

“N’ minute.”

“Whaddaya mean ‘in a minute?! We’ve not got time for this!” (Oswald realised that feeling was a mix of bitter, mean-spirited satisfaction, all churned up with sympathy he did not want to feel, and shame for the whole debacle because when the heck did he start being gleeful over other people’s suffering?!) But he kept going, gesturing upward,

The mouse winced, screwing his eyes shut. “I know, I’m – I’m sorry, I just- I almost… Petetronic , he…”

That high-pitched, whimsical voice of his was unusually crackly and thin. Enough for Oswald to put his reprimand on pause.

His eyes flickered subtly, eyeing the mouse’s face. Scrapes where paint had taken a hit, the ‘toon’ version of bruises: cartoony ‘crisscross’ marks. Things slotted into place. Petetronic must’ve really wailed on him when he lost the brush.

(The brush that Gus had returned and was clutched against the Mouse’s chest.)

That morbid satisfaction bled away fast and Oswald felt…empty inside, and uncomfortable. He knelt and saw even more scuffs, a good few tears on those dumb iconic shorts. His hand raised.

To get him out of here, he was going to have to lift him.

“I heard the gremlins talk about how you battle blotlings all the time. Kickin’ and punching.” Mickey said suddenly, albeit very soft and miserable, “And that ‘sall I can think about. You think I was supposed to be better than you, but without a magic paintbrush I can’t even land a hit.”

With every word he seemed to grow smaller, and Oswald couldn’t figure out how to answer. Surprise made his brain go thick. True, Mickey had never been as scrappy in any of his shorts.

A abrupt stab of something lit in his stomach. 

He was mad.

A different mad. He saw it in his head, Mickey’s tiny form being pummelled by what was essential a giant to him, and rather than laugh like he’d think he would, he felt…

“I can’t defend myself, how am I gonna defend anybody else?” Mickey went on, and now Oswald saw tears welling up. The mouse pressed his wrist against one eye and cringed.

Oswald sighed.

He couldn’t really argue. Maybe he could’ve said, ‘yeah, I knew you weren’t much without the brush’ but he found that faced with the miserable icon in front of him, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Instead he grasped Mickey’s arm, trying to ignore the wince, and slunk his free hand around his torso, hoisting him up. Mickey was taller (something that irked him) but thank heck he was light. He did put weight on his feet, morosely trying to support himself even though one leg looked boneless suddenly, but let his head hang unhappily.

Oswald bent his legs and leaped. Mickey’s eyes went wide but by this point he was too weak to react out loud to how easily Oswald managed to jump up to the surface (with him in tow.) Oswald hid a slightly egotistical smirk.

Gus looked relieved but Oswald ignored the wry, knowing look on his face. He admitted nothing.

But where the heck was he supposed to put him?

…

Turns out it was obvious, though he had a time dragging Mickey to Ostown. The telephone greeted them loudly (something that made Oswald grit his teeth and Mickey flinch because, headache.) It felt like hours before Oswald got to the fundamentally unused bed and managed to lift Mickey into it.

(The mouse flopped without any argument, and Oswald felt foolish and out of place tossing the covers over him.)

“Thanks.” Mickey mumbled, hardly awake by now. Oswald made a sound of indignation and didn’t reply.

But he didn’t leave. Gus was settled on Mickey’s other side, concerned yet calm.

“I miss Minnie.” Mickey said absent-mindedly. The gremlin smiled faintly, as if watching a child babbling. Oswald rolled his eyes, but when he spoke there was far less of a sharp edge in his words,

“Yeah, figures.”

“Your ears are real tall.” Mickey’s eyes were barely open. Oswald kept down a huff. Sounds like a concussion, if Toons could get ‘em.

“I hadn’t noticed. Call the president. Inform the masses.” He replied, plopping down on a nearby chair and promptly slouching.

Still didn’t leave.

“Hmm.” Mickey didn’t appear to have heard, and drifted off moments later.

…

Mickey came out of a haze, and Oswald kept appearing. Sometimes he’d be hovering just outside the room, or sitting huffily right beside the bed, but often that night when Mickey opens his eyes, he could catch a small look of the rabbit lingering somewhere.

At first, he’d felt a twinge of fear, waking up somewhere familiar. He’d known right away it wasn’t his real home, and after that whole incident with the lab-table and shackles, he was going to be having anxious awakenings for a while.

The near defeat from Petetronic was still stinging, but he didn’t dwell on it as long as he might’ve is Oswald had taken that moment to kick him while he was down. Though the rabbit looked completely annoyed through it all, he didn’t go back to Mean Street until Mickey was on his feet and decidedly less droopy.

Mickey didn’t comment on it,

He honestly didn’t understand it, but it made him feel a little lighter.


End file.
